Consequences of magnetotail ion dynamics

The trajectories of a large ensemble of particles are calculated in a modified Tsyganenko magnetic field model with a uniform cross‐tail electric field. The model magnetotail can be divided into several distinct dynamical regimes of ion motion. Near Earth, where the field lines are dipolar the adiabatic formalism is adequate. In the mid‐tail and distant tail, guiding‐center theory breaks down and must be replaced by a quasi‐adiabatic formalism. There is an important transition region between the adiabatic and quasi‐adiabatic regions where ion trajectories become more complicated and no simple analytical description holds. This wall region is characterized by rapid ion acceleration and a major loss of particles to the dusk flank. The moments of the ion distribution function are constructed from the ion trajectories, including density, temperature, and pressure in the x‐z and x‐y planes. In the noon‐midnight meridian plane, parameters are relatively constant except near the Earth, while the x‐y plots show strong gradients across the magnetotail. Magnetotail plasma convects earthward, drifts toward dusk, and is squeezed out of the tail in the near‐Earth region. A thin current sheet forms in the quasi‐adiabatic region, and the pressure tensor has significant off‐diagonal terms at its edges. These terms are the result of quasi‐adiabatic ion trajectories which lead to azimuthally asymmetric distribution functions capable of maintaining approximate stress balance across the current sheet. Simplified analytical descriptions provide further physical insight into ion dynamics that are observed.